The Athletic Football Show: A show about the NFL - Football GM: NFL free agent rankings

Episode Date: February 24, 2024

When the season ends the baton gets passed to the GM world.The NFL is in the offseason and Mike and Randy talk about free agents in the NFL. The guys go through each position group of free agents and look at potential fits around the league. Then the guys further their discussion and look at potential trade offs and options for teams to make a trade.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is the athletic football show's football GM podcast. Welcome everybody to the football GM podcast. Mike Sando here from The Athletic, along with the GM, my athletic or my The Athletic colleague, Randy Miller. How you doing, Randy? Doing great, Mike. This is supposed to be the offseason. I've never been busier the last few weeks, and I actually love it. I think there is a million things that we're going to hit on today and probably a million more coming up in March.

And as you know, when the season ends, the day, batons get past to the GM world from the coach. And so we should have plenty to talk about over the next few months. No doubt about it. Well, of course, you started up already with your free agency ranking. So we're going to get into some of that, which is going to be fun. But yeah, people used to always ask, you know, when they find out what you do for a little? What do you do in the off season?

Used to always be the, that was probably the number one question I would get the most when you said you're covering the NFL around the NFL. What are you doing the off season? Well, let me explain. That's the funnest part sometimes, really. It really is because the team performance sort of stands still. We don't have to try to keep up with and make sense of what happened in the last game. We have a baseline to work off of. And then when you have a whole offseason to do stuff and build your roster,

that's really some of the fun of stuff, isn't it? Well, it definitely is in the GM world. I think the facets that get off the radar for most fans are that these off-seasons of multitasking nowadays with what has to happen in a NFL front office between really the end of the season and March 17th or whenever the new league starts. It is crazy the amount of information and intake that these offices have to have and give and communicate to each other just to get everybody sometimes in your own building on the same page can be exhausting. Absolutely. This isn't wasn't really on our schedule but thinking about this, you know, the NBA

All-Star game was recently. Remember that? And they think a lot of criticism for what it's evolved into. And I was talking to my son about it. Maybe think of a little bit about the NFL and managing people. And my son, who's 19 years old, we were talking about the dunk contest. And he was saying, why would a star want to do this? Because one of them did. One of the Celtic stars was in it. And he had a bad dunk, you know, and everybody was making fun of it, right? Immediately it was on sports or on social media, you know, and ha ha, this and that. And you know what made me think of is just the management of people. And the world that these players live in now is so different.

And I was thinking, you know, we all sort of fall into this shoot. I pulled out the, I had the 1986 All-Star game. I recorded it back then. And my son and I watched it. It was unbelievable. It looked like an NBA finals game. Now these guys are playing hard laying themselves out there. But I was also thinking, in this world today, Randy,

of social media and what these players had to deal with. Do you remember how bristly Kareem Abdul-Jabbar was on the Lakers when he didn't want to deal with the media? And he was known for pouting and all of that. Put him in today's world. Did you see that thing the other day where, you know, I think it was, was it Kevin Durant was being heckled in the crowd? Yep, yep.

And just how much more stuff is swirling around people's minds. I mean, think of just the other day, you're not. post your free agency rankings, there's 400 comments immediately with 30, you know, with 20 people calling you an idiot, 20 people saying good job. All of this, but all of this stuff is what everybody, all this noise is what everybody has to deal with now on their own level. And it's huge if you're a Kevin Durant or one of those guys. And it's big if you're a general manager. But managing all of that and just sort of keeping straight in your mind, what's really important and what's real and what's not real. All this stuff's real. So all those things are

stuff you're having to deal with now as a general manager in keeping everyone on the same page, right? It's really, yeah, it's really hard because all the agendas, as you mentioned, all the people involved, all of them have different agendas. And one quick example of one thing that I always do when we're preparing for the draft is especially the last month when we're kind of in lockdown in a draft room on your planning, your strategy, your final evaluations. I used to shut out. I'd never turn a TV on. I didn't care about ESPN.

I didn't care who was saying what. God bless all the experts, but I don't really care. You didn't have to pay attention. Yeah, the other day was, could I do that now? Because there's so many avenues. I'd almost have to live in a bubble because you can't get away from it now. You can't get away from social media. You can't get away from any of this stuff.

But I think I'd still. I think it's a reality. It's a reality for your players. Yes. Yes. There was just terrible story, Randy, in the New York Times today. It was a great story, but it was about how parents of little girls even are giving them Instagram accounts and making them in little stars. And you've got a bunch of adults on there following them in super creepy ways. And I just thought of all of these things are sort of an extension of the world we live in now and the management of people and just keeping people's heads pointed forward

and keeping them mentally in the right place just feels like it's harder and harder than ever to do and is a part of this on your team you almost have to you know as i'm sure they do they've got the psychologist everybody here to help people navigate this stuff so anyway that wasn't on our agenda but i just thought it was talking about the job in the off season there's a lot of people that can reach the players and coaches and all in ways that maybe didn't happen before that aren't always healthy and are something you got to deal with, you know, in your building. So probably all the more reason, Mike, to have a direct and continuous relationship and line of communication with your players if you're a GM, taking all of that other noise out of it.

Yes. If I have an issue with Justin Fields or want to know him to know something, he's coming in and we're talking face to face. And I think sometimes way more than in the past, way more. You've got to find a way to have a direct communication so your line of communication doesn't get sideways by all these other agendas. So, and I was thinking about that, like in their case, though, the bears probably can't tell him exactly what they're thinking, right? Because there's a little bit of poker involved here. They may have already decided, hey, we're trapped in Caleb Williams and we've got to, you know, keep the value up for Justin Fields. So that's an awkward situation. They probably, he was complaining the other day. I just want to know this is sort of, but as a GM, could you make it so that he's not saying that without betraying your strategy? Or how would you? Well, I think it actually works the other way in that if you, how much you let out,

hurts your own cause as a team. So you're right. You've got to be careful what you do pass on to him. But again, I think just being there to understand the way he feels and having him know that you understand that, I think would be helpful in the process. And maybe I mean, we're not picking on the bears. A lot of these relationships happen around the league. I just think you have to be more people oriented as a decision maker in the NFL now than ever before because of things like this. Even if you can't tell, in this case, Justin Fields, the specifics, you can tell him how much you understand that the taxing part of this for you. But know that, hey, here's kind of our timeline.

Here's what we're going to do. It's probably best for us, none of us to say anything about it. We just got to grin and bear it. I don't care if you scrub us from your social media platforms. I could care less. I do the same thing as a GM or as an employee of the athletic. I'll mute people because I just don't have time for the nonsense. I don't have time to hear.

That's why I couldn't get a hold of you the other day. Dang it. You muted me. You muted me. It's just nuts. So I get it. But they need to know that they have support and understanding from the front office in these relationships. All right.

Let's get into free agency rankings. I think that's an interesting conversation, though, and we'll see how all of that factors in in this offseason as the storylines and misunderstandings and all of that do happen and affect the relationships. I want to get into the top 150. Everybody needs to check this out. If you're a fan of free agency, if you're a fan of the NFL, you want to, you know, not just your boilerplate rankings, but Randy, tell us how you did this project, 150. You didn't just spend last weekend. together. How long you've been working on it? What is involved? And then we're going to get into some of the actual rankings themselves and discuss ones that might be surprising or interesting or

what? So what do you do? How do you do this? It is a pretty good size undertaking for sure. And I would not recommend anybody decides to be a one-man scouting department themselves. Because it is, you say, we did sequence 150 free agents. But to do that, I probably looked at 250 or maybe even more because you're obviously not going to always look at guys who make the 150. So you end up looking at a lot of guys. It's a great exercise for some Hobbit like myself who loves to sit around and look at tape. It's great. But it is enormous.

I think the staff at the athletic, the only reason I was able to pull it off or even come close to it is because I got help from the beat writers, from the editors. A lot of people were involved in this from the graphic people. In just getting into the list or what? Yeah. And I'll say this. It started with kind of consider this like a combine list that came from the writers. They kind of prioritize their thoughts, which gives me a starting point, right? Yeah.

And then I, at the end, I also come back with input from editors, from graphics, from more beat writers frame of mind, that these guys might get tagged or these guys, we need to add this because we just didn't rank one through 150. we've got a little synopsis on each person, each player. So if you're a fan really of following this closely, you can go through there and hit on the tabs and pull up, hey, this is what Randy thought or this is what the beat writer thought. I think the other day, one of the higher-ups told me that the average time spent on people looking at our 150 list was like three and a half minutes when they would go in there. That's a long time for people.

That's a long time on the Internet. Yes, a long time to view one thing. So there's a lot of information there. That's the only point I'm making. And I just think the meat and potatoes, the evaluating part, I did. But the other people had a lot to do with kind of directing me. And I kind of look at it as they were the scouts. And I might have just been the decision maker at the end of it.

The big difference in what we did as far as putting this together is when you put it up against the real version, the reality of NFL teams doing it, there are five guys evaluating each player. And you sit down and talk about these strengths and weaknesses and build a consensus. And so you always have a criteria of what your team is looking for in specific each position. And then you build your consensus with everybody's thoughts. We don't have that. And obviously we don't have that kind of staff. And so that's worth. And we don't have a team. You're not drafting, you're not signing for a team specifically. Right.

And so when fans go on there and say, oh, this is messed up. This guy has this guy ranked here or there. We really don't know what other teams will see. I know what has worked well for me over the last 30 years. And really, that's the vision of the project is kind of what Randy likes in players. And that may be different than what Mike likes in players. So I would just say when people look at the list, keep in mind that you may know more than me, with regard to your team's exact specifics that they're looking for.

So it was quite a project. I just think the criteria, what skill sets are there have to be identified, and then you prioritize these skill sets. And it starts with a list by position. So there's 15 wide receivers or there's 22 offensive alignment. So that's where you start. And then I actually assigned a grade to all these players and then built a big board of 1 through 150 regardless of position

from these positional lists. So that's kind of the process of how worked. With Brian Burns, number one, the Carolina pass rusher. So just on him, how many snaps or games of him did you watch to do it? I'm just curious. And when you're watching, are you just watching him? You're watching the team? You've taken notes.

You've got a notepad. You got a computer. How do you do it? Well, you're watching him alone. But at times, you have to know what is being asked of, in this case, the defense and how they're using him and how he responds to the varied alignments that they use him in. So you can see if a system fits a particular skill set of a player. But I think in his case, I mean, he's such a good player that you don't have to watch many plays. Mike, I mean, my daughter could probably tell me

after about 10 minutes. This guy is pretty good, Dad. So those ones aren't the hard one. It's always the gray area, always the guys outside that top group that you do spend a little more time on. And you'll, you'll try to watch, and again, that's why I started this a long time ago during even the season, when we were both busy with our own chores with the athletic, any downtime. I would look at a couple game films on as many guys as I could and noted the potential free agents at the end of it when I would try to break down a team what they're doing. So most scouts look at a minimum of three games before they would put a number or an evaluation on a guy. There's no way I can do that as one guy. So I can't look at that much film.

Fortunately, we have ways now to edit and break down specific key plays and other skill sets that can be recognized without having to look at three or four continued game films. So depending on the player, situationally, yeah. Yeah, I might look from anywhere from 50 to 150 plays on a player in general. Okay, so who was interesting and who did you really, did anybody surprise you? or you looked at them more than you thought because you had to figure something out? There is always equations

and think about your math class when you have an algebra equation, you solve it by putting one number in there, right? And most of those can be done fairly quick. But remember, when we were kids, we had the story problems and it was a whole paragraph of information we had to sort through.

Sucked, I hated those. Yeah, well, that's what these are like for me. An evaluation is a story problem because it's not cut and dried. It's not the equation leading you to a number. It is all kind of factors, and we talked about some of them. It's scheme. It's health.

It's the opponent. It's what's being asked and happens with the guy next to him. So it's not objective. It is very subjective, and all of these things enter into the equation. So it's easier to solve some than others. I used to do this when I was on the road as a college National Scout. I would say I can solve some of these. guys in two hours I'm at the school. Some of them take me two days and I'm not that weekend when I'm

writing the report still haven't solved them yet. That's what I'm curious. Who were those guys for you this year and free agency? Well, I think the guys who really you have to dig deep on are, in this case, I found it was quarterbacks and not the top guys, but the middle of the road guys. Receivers, you've got to know what they're being asked and you've got to see sometimes, let's take, for example, T. Higgins didn't have a great year, was injured most of the year, didn't get his perennial 1,000 yards. So you almost had to go back and look at 22 stuff to see what the difference was. Sometimes you have to do that with college kids too, and the fact, like a quarterback like Drake May who had two different coordinators the last two years, different systems, different

ideas, you have to incorporate all of that into your evaluation. You just can't look at the last three games. So all of these things factor in. There were some surprises to me in two facets. One, how certain coaches and schemes used players and some on how really players that I hadn't heard of. And I think we both think of ourselves as football fanatics. There were guys that I had not heard of that jumped out at me as, dang, this guy's really good. How come can I not heard this name? Ooh, do you got a couple of those guys off top of your head?

There's a linebacker with the Cardinals, an inside linebacker Kyle Barnes, who I'm going to be honest. I didn't know who he was. I hadn't seen him before. I didn't know how it played. It's Chris Barnes, K-R-Y-S, Chris Barnes. He's a guy they picked up from Green Bay. Okay, number 51.

So what, he's listed number two on their depth chart. So that's, I couldn't tell you anything about him. I had to look at the Our Ladd's depth chart. I cheated. So you tell him. Really good player. Really good player. And I had not studied him before.

This guy was, he showed range. He showed downhill physicality. He did all kinds of things. He was a really good tackler. He played on third downs. And so I rated him pretty good. and some people say, what the hell? You're rating a backup ahead of this.

But this is what NFL teams and pro scouts do all the time. This is what they spend 24-7 doing all the time. So they're not surprised like me, but the process led me to be surprised by a bunch of these guys. I had heard through talking with other people, and it's no secret that the defensive linemen from the Ravens, how do you say his name? Oh, yeah, Justin Medibuque.

Yeah. How do you say it? Justin Metabuque. Now you're going to make me not be able to say. it, Randy. I just said it. Madabu-M-A-B-A-B-A-E. And everybody's talked about how good he was. Yeah, so not a secret. Yeah. But when I watch the tape, I'm thinking, he's better than I've heard. He's better than these people have told me he was. So you tend to learn more. There's other guys that,

this guy started every game for one team, played safety, a bunch of tackles for the most part. the writers loved him that put him on my list initially. At the end of my evaluation, I said, they're playing the wrong guys. This guy shouldn't even be playing. And who is that? What team was he on? Who's that? Well, I don't want to beat those guys up, but that's a guy from the commanders, a safety

that I really struggled to wrap my arms around to say, what are they seeing that I don't see? So, again, it is subjective. And everybody has different, you know, flavors that they're looking for. And you could break down each of these positions with the criteria that makes you shine and makes you say, wow, you know how I am with speed and how I am with receivers. And guys that can run fast are going to filter toward the top of my list no matter what. That's always been the case. It's served me well.

People can say, well, you're an idiot. And I'm not talking about guys that can run fast but can't catch. I'm talking about the ability to force defenses to defend you differently is the speed I'm talking about. There's a bunch of guys in this year's, yeah, in this year's receiver group that don't necessarily. necessarily run really fast, but they're really good players. But I might value a speedier guy who can do more for your scheme than you design a play to do because he is faster than anybody else you have. Does that make any sense? It sure does. Yeah. Personal criteria factors into this. Yes. That's a good segue into the receiver rankings. I want to hit them first. I think the

the safety you were talking about on the command is it was 31 right cam curl is that who you're talking about 30 yes good good player but you were just good player you just with the tape didn't quite live up to what you were being sold beforehand but so that's sort of the flip side of our guy on arizona linebacker in Arizona who no one didn't even talk about but when you watch them it's all it's all driven by your film you're watching it's all driven you're going oh oh but you're ranking at the end of the day on that 150 board is also driven by the depth that other positions and at his position. So I saw four or five safeties that I really liked. So guess what? That drives that player down probably further than he should go. Yeah, you liked Xavier McKinney a lot

from the Giants, right? A lot. Yeah, a lot. Yeah. And Winfield from Tampa and there's a couple other younger guys. There's a kid the Chargers have that I really didn't know a lot about. But I just like them better. So it drops some of those other guys down. So their value on the big board is determined sometimes by how good others at their position are. All right. So let's dive into the receivers a little bit here. So about 10 days ago, Randy, you tweeted something that generated a little bit of a stir. You're always stirring it up on Twitter.

Yeah, you know me. Just kidding. But no, it said this. It was after the Chiefs won. And I will admit I was a little, I was thrown off a little bit, but we're going to get to the bottom of it. The Chiefs are now the poster child for not paying a wide receiver. Will utter teams adopt and tamp down values of this year's mediocre group of UFA receivers, which I love because this is.

is a tell that you've been watching receiver tape. You tell that right there. You couldn't wait for your rankings to come out. But I read this and I thought, wait a minute, you know, the chief's problems at receiver kind of made it hard for them to win it all. If anything, after the season, I would feel they got to address that because you can't just bank on Mahomes pulling it out anyway. But I sort of got the sense after I saw your rankings come out for receivers and looking

at this again, maybe you were saying more about the receiver market and free agency than you were necessarily saying about the chiefs. Because when we look at the free agent wide receiver rankings from you, none of the wide receivers are even among the top 20. I think you had your top receiver was number 23 free agent, Calvin Ridley, then Darnell Mooney from the Bears at 29. Michael Pittman of the Colts at 32. T. Higgins of the Bengals at 34. Mike Evans of the Bucks at 38. Maybe you can elaborate on what you meant there and why you drew the chiefs into that.

because I think a lot of people sort of thought, wait a minute, no one else can do what the chiefs are doing because they don't have my homes, but maybe that wasn't exactly what you were saying. Well, yeah, there's a lot to unpack there, and I'll try to get to all of those. I would say this with regard to those receivers falling so a little lower than most thought in the rankings. Unless you've looked at whoever you said was 32, whether that was T. Higgins or something like that, unless you've seen one through 31, you don't know if he's ranked in. the right spot or not. You know what I mean? Because these other players in free agency are really, really good. And they may be valued higher on some teams board, which I'm positive they are. So it's not a personal slight that I have against any particular player. It is reflective of the value of the total pool of players and how good they are. But I'll say this, and this goes for

scouting individual players in general for NFL teams. And this includes really draftable prospects too. the criteria, everything that the people on the outside look at when evaluating, I think there's a lower threshold to pass players on the outside. Evaluators on the inside of NFL buildings, we beat a lot of players down, man. There's a lot of negativity. There's a lot of more critical eyes. Not everybody is as good as viewed by the outside world. They just can't say that.

They never will. You'll never hear anybody say anything bad about it. Why would they? It doesn't make any sense. So sometimes when I do projects like this, I'm a little caught in between. How much can I say? Because again, I'm not trying to beat anybody up, but I'm just trying to point out the facts without making any particular player look bad.

But in these meetings in NFL offices, they make people look bad. They say the facts. They tell you the way it is. We're not beating around the bush like sometimes we see at the water cooler at work. These guys actually know what they're watching, and you'd be shocked that how good players can still have negative and still have, you can be critical of them. Facts are these narratives, you know, they're part of every evaluation. They just never get made public. So these are really good players that still have issues.

With regard to the chief's part of that question, the chiefs know they got by with a less than stellar group this year. Trust me, they do. And your comeback is, like everybody's was. with regard to that tweet as well, if you have Pat Mahomes, you can get away with this. That's not a blueprint for others. My point isn't exactly that. It's that with Pat Mahomes and the receiving group, there was a vast canyon between the levels of play.

Pat Mahomes made up for that vast canyon. Can other teams do similar? In other words, Josh Allen or we saw Lamar Jackson in prior years not be able to close that gap between the lack of perimeter help around him. but now they saw what the chiefs did and that system that Andy runs, can we get away with at least closing that gap, which means not paying receivers 23, 24, 25 million a year? That's really the big thing the chiefs have done is they'll upgrade the quality of receivers. I have no doubt between now and next year. But if Tyreek deal came available again, would they move him? What's going to happen?

And we're going to hit on some of this with some of these other top receivers like Justin Jefferson or Diggs in Buffalo. Are those guys going to get moved because nobody wants to pay $25 million for a receiver when that leaves a whole bunch of other holes and choices to build our team elsewhere void. So that's all I'm saying is there's a gap that Mahomes, yes, he mined the gap, as they say in London, mind the gap. He mined it really well. and that gap was huge.

But can some of these other teams mind the gap as well? And even though they're not as big a gap as where the chiefs are, that's the only statement I was making. In terms of, hey, it doesn't mean we're going to have a bad group, but we don't have to have the super high end. Some of this, too, is where your team build is as well. I mean, you scratched your head when the Raiders were adding Devante Adams, and you're like, wait a minute, they have a lot of utter, the receiver can be sort of the, it's a valuable position, but you don't necessarily start there, right, when you're building your team.

More like the cherry on top that puts us over. Yeah, it puts us over the top. Not the meat and potatoes. Yeah, yeah, a little bit. So, okay, so that's a little bit interesting one. Okay, all right, defensive tackle rankings were interesting too because I think people noticed right away that Chris Jones was not your number one defensive tackle or your number one defensive player.

And, of course, everyone knows what a great impact he made in the Super Bowl. You had him fourth among the free agents behind Brian Burns, Daniel Hunter, Justin Medibuque, who I said properly, I think this time. At D-Tackle specifically, I think your order was Medibuque, Chris Jones, Christian Wilkins, who you really liked of Miami, Leonard Williams, Dequan Jones, and DeNico Atre, who somebody who surprised you, right? DeNico did. Very much so.

From Tennessee, another guy that I had not studied before that really is put together a pretty good body of work that I think people will be valued, that will value at high, and he probably only get paid some money because of it. Yeah. I deal with Chris Jones. Just to answer your question. Yeah, yeah. What are you talking about him specifically?

And, you know, I thought that was one that caught people's attention. Wait a minute. Chris Jones, he's got to be at the top. So what were you looking at and why? He's at the top because he's been highest in our recency biased. Obviously, he made plays to determine the Super Bowl. So I think Chris Jones is really good. I think he is top-notch for a bunch of reasons.

but I do know what teams do when they start to put together their plans and how they kind of go about their criteria. Age is an issue. Trust me. Age is an issue. And when you go watch Chris Jones film individually, you might see a player. And I know this to be the fact when he was in college too. And I'm not, again, beaten up on Chris Jones. He was the fourth guy on the list. But there are plays when he's less than engaged. There are plays when. And I'm trying to be nice here. There are plays when... He picks his spots. Yes, very much so.

Picks his spots. And everybody says, well, he'll let him pick his spots. He saved two touchdowns. I get it. But my point was, that's probably the reason he's worth more to Kansas City than another team. Because they know what they're getting. They know how to deal with it. They know they've got to take the bad with the good and they're okay with it.

But if you're another team, are you going to pay $30 million for a part-time player? probably not going to happen. It's probably unlikely that he, one, would go there, and two, that they would be accepting of everything that they're getting with Chris Jones. So the body of work in its entirety isn't all, hey, let's pay $30 million. This guy's the greatest ever. It's just not. That's not real.

So that's kind of where I came down with him. And you talk about Madabukwe, he's an every down hard playing Jesse man who can rush the passer, who can do all. all kinds of crazy stuff that at a younger age, I think we'll probably get more money on the market other than just the public narrative of like you said, Chris Jones is great. He should get paid whatever. They can't afford to lose him. I agree with all those. But I think for Kansas City, he becomes more valuable than another team would put value on him, if that makes sense. The other two at the top, and I'll say this about the front seven players, we're talking about

defensive rankings. The front seven players that I found in this group is rare, Mike, because they're really good. And it's going to get weeded out some with tags. I get it. Yeah. But there's probably 10 or 12 guys on here that I saw that were difference makers between edge players, defensive tackles, blitzing outside linebackers, however you draw it up for criteria, really a great group. And it went deep. And so there'll be some tags that, like I say, dilute it. but there's still going to be some really good players at that position on the market that I think are going to get paid pretty big money because that is a priority for every NFL team and it's really hard to find. Let's get into those edge rankings, which first have we now, or we've conceded that edge is now the phrase? I thought you used to kind of mock the term edge in the past.

Are we using edge now? Is it just sort of the best word out there for this position? 100%. I'm converted. You've converted, okay. And you're kind of saying that tongue and cheek, but I deserve a little criticism for that. No, no. No, I'm with you. I've been hard pressed because in my history has been an edge player has to play a position.

We don't have an edge player position. But the game has evolved so much that it's kind of become seven-on-seven recess football for the most part. So you're playing 60 to 70% of your defense with edge players. So I get it. And so I'm on board with identifying some of these players as edge players. that's not to say that they don't have individual criteria and skill sets that differ. And you can place those depending on your scheme. So yes, I ranked them as edge players.

I know a lot of NFL teams have kind of succumbed to that thinking as well. So it's a unique group of players. Was the PFF the first ones to start using that a lot? That seems like where I saw that term more like they had it categorized in maybe years ago. I have to figure that out. Anyway. So the order at this position for you was Wow, number one, Brian Burns, who's number one overall.

Number two overall, Danielle Hunter from Minnesota. Number six overall, Josh Allen, not the quarterback. Number nine overall is Daria Smith and number 11 Jonathan Greenard. So you've got five of the top 11 overall guys here are at that position. That's what you're talking about. Yes, that's what I'm talking about. And those guys are fun to watch. And those guys are game-changing, pass-rushing, skills.

skill sets that can do more than just that. They are pieces that you can move all over the field. You can align them in different ways, in different schemes. And I think really all those guys kind of outplay the schemes, whatever and whenever, they're asked to do certain tasks. So I just thought it was a great group. I don't know how many those guys are going to get tagged. They're all worthy of whatever money they get. And there'll be a lot of NFL interest, I think, willing to pay top dollar for them. I thought it was funny, not funny, but interesting. I've read and tried to keep up with the Brian Burns negotiation in Carolina, and it sounds like the word on the street is they've offered a deal in the average of $27 million range. You know the BOSAs make 30, 31.

I got news for you. If that's what is going to be the difference between us letting him go or not, I'm probably acquiescent in paying him because that's how good I think in this case Brian Burns is. And I think there'll be a ton of teams that would pay Bosa type. money for him. So I don't think he's going anywhere. I think he'll get tagged before they ever send him anywhere or let him hit the street. But there's a deal in there to be made somewhere for sure. It's kind of interesting though, too, when you have a high profile player, but you also have a bunch of new people in decision-making positions. I know Dan Morgan is still there. He was the assistant GM and now he's the president GM. So he'll have the history with him. That probably,

you would think that might help, Brian Murray. Sometimes when new people come in, it's like, hey, he's got to prove it to me, right? He's going to show it, show me how good he is. Look, this defense last year wasn't, I mean, everybody says, talks like it's good, but they're 27th and red zone. I think they were 22nd in EPA per play. They were 25th in points allowed, probably something like that. So it wasn't like they were just a world on fire. But what you're saying is if you were going in there, you'd prioritize him. I definitely would.

And just what you said is a great point, Mike, because their teams in the NFL will target teams with decision makers who are new, who have to be sold on certain players as as targets, right? I'm going to go get them. The commanders are a great example of that to me, and I'm going off our grid here a little bit. I like it. The commanders have 20 players that we've talked about, around 20 impactful players of some type. Now, you may like some more or less than others. I get it.

But the fact is the new staff there, Adam Peters, Lance Newmark, their new evaluations, their new coaches, have to put some value on those 20 free agents. you may be able to find a player too that you value more than them is all I'm saying. They're going to be turnover. Yes. You purposely target teams where there's possible turnover in the front office, into coaching staff, and thus on the roster. So if I'm looking for certain things,

I'm going to maybe start with talking to my pro scouting department of saying, hey, we think these changes might have an effect on their roster. Let's identify a couple guys here that we see as, And the key is as ascending players, not that have a full body of work, but that we see a couple things that others might not see. And if we use them in our system, they may ascent to a different level of player. That's how you can sneak and find players. Interesting.

Yeah, just looking at all these guys, there's a ton of them on their team. Yeah. Is there anyone that stood out to you? I'm just, this is a little off script. Well, the safety who stood out at me, we talked about going the other way. Yeah, 31 Cam Curl. Yeah, there's some other guys in there. There are.

There's a couple receivers that are fast. Curtis Samuel's one of them. James and Crowder, Byron Pringle, or the wide receivers that could be up. They have a safety that I've watched for years, Jeremy Reeves, who's a Pro Bowl special teams player. 39. For whatever reason, does not get to play much on defense at all.

You like him. I like him a lot. And I think he is at minimum a third safety somewhere to where if he wants to become more of a special teams player, it may, he may be targeted by some teams as well, but less about that specific, more about that thought process in general, of the idea of going after some of these newly found decision makers who might be distracted on some other task. Yeah, or have their own guys they want from a different team.

Exactly. When Mike Holmgren and his staff, and you know Mike Reinfeld, a good friend of both of ours, came with Mike Holmgren from Green Bay to Seattle in 1999. We had certain free agents on our list of our own, who I was worried about losing. They were new, so they didn't really know these guys. And therefore, they didn't really monitor, like I had been monitoring for a few months ahead of time,

our own players. So it came to find out that there were a couple decision windows where I knew a player was going to leave and go somewhere else and sign. And they hadn't gotten that far yet on their evaluation. So I had, Mike and I became good friends. So we were on the same page. And I said, Mike, we're going to lose this guy. We need to keep him in this way or another.

And they listened to me. We ended up keeping them. And I'm not telling the story to create any credit for myself. I'm just saying that that communication has to happen in every building where the holdovers have to be respected and listen to. Otherwise, you're going to lose some good players along the way. It's happened for sure a lot. Yeah, okay, let's get into these quarterback rankings.

I do want to touch on them because in a minute when we talk about the Vikings and Kirk Cousins what their options might be, we're going to talk about a potential tradeoff. Like, hey, moving on from Kirk Cousins is one thing, but you've got to have someone else stand behind the center and catch the shotgun snap to be able to run the play. And that's the hard part of moving on from somebody who's pretty good. But if you do not feel great about paying Kirk Cousins here to the top of the market, but what about, let's just say, a Sam Darnold for the fraction of the price, you've raised this possibility.

I think it was in a piece on the athletic recently, too, talking about what the Vikings might do. But in your free agency rankings, the quarterbacks, this is the order. There's a lot of them. I'll just try to go quick. Seven cousins, 20, Baker Mayfield, 98, Darnold, 103, Tyrod Taylor, 105, Ryan Tannehill, 118 Mason Rudolph, 121 Jacoby Percette, 127, and Gardner Minshu, 134 Flacco, 146 Drew Locke, Big Breath, 150.

Marcus Mariota, what do you think? Well, where those players ended up being ranked is, again, another example of big picture how the reflection of depth at other positions, just like in the draft, ends up having an effect on where these teams fall. So when people say, and I use this as a draftable example, this team needs to move up and draft a quarterback or they need to move here and sign a linebacker, that doesn't always make sense to me because there are other options available that you might like better. It's easy to judge we need a quarterback in a vacuum and put all else aside. We have no chance without one. I'm not sure,

but you've got to consider all options that allow you to fill other holes as well. If you just look at these available quarterbacks in free agency now, you have to categorize them in my mind. And this is the way I did it to obvious starters, obvious. backups, and then you better spend the majority of your time, like I mentioned earlier in the podcast, sorting out the middle group. Because there are reasons, and we go back to the story problems, there are reasons why they may have succeeded to starting status with success or failed because of some other reasons around them. Is it the scheme? Is it the organization? Is it the lack of quality players around them? I always say the middle ground is more like, you know,

that pan of gold and to find one ruby that you can shine when the pan comes out of the water. And so I tend to not necessarily agree with it when you mentioned the specific example about Sam Donald. I don't start with the premise that Sam Darnold sucks. I start with the premise of, well, let's figure out what's happened. Let's figure out exactly what he was being asked to do. And before we say he sucks, let's figure out if there are other entities involved in this that got him to where he was.

Which, okay, now the flip side criticism of that would be, okay, Mueller, you're just going to stay anchored to your pre-draft e-vail, right? So what's the truth of that? And I think 99 out of 100 listeners to our podcast would rather have Gardner Minchu than Sam Darnold probably. And same thing in the media, right? But you've got Darnold as the third quarterback here, and you've got Gardner Minshu way down on the list, four, five, six, seven, maybe eighth. So how? How do you? How do you? How do you? You know, how much of that is grounded in what you thought of Donald coming out and how much of that is updated information? My information that I use for these is all done in a comparative standpoint. Let's put the two names down and go through and evaluate exactly what the skill sets are and check the box that you like the most. If we're talking about accuracy, if we're talking about arm strength, if we're talking about processing information. In the system where Sam Donald is now in San Francisco, I think you would check

all of those boxes, and I would welcome anybody to sit down and do it with me. I like Gardner Minchew. I just see some things physically that he can't do that Sam Donald can do. So the margin for error is always greater with someone who can physically make up for some bad play calls or a receiver running the wrong route or whatever. I think Minchu is great. He doesn't need a lot of reps. He can make throws that are designed by the system for him to make. He's going to make inconsistent decisions, I promise you. The processing has been inconsistent. He has been in some pretty good systems, I might say, too. So I just feel like that one is capped out, right, for what he is. And I would love to have Gardner Mintzue as a backup. But I don't see him ever

evolving into a full-time starter. I still think there's a little window for a guy like Sam Darnold. if you could get the Kyle Shanahan offense to be his next stop or something similar to that. Kevin O'Connell in Minnesota, somebody like that, you know, that runs this system. I think he'll be valuable to them. Let's get right into that then because the Vikings do have a Kirk Cousins decision to make. Maybe it's been made. But we're recording this podcast on February 23rd. Cousins is going to become a free agent on March 13th if he doesn't sign an extension by then.

Vikings have already agreed. They won't use the franchise tag on them. That's in the contract. Some have kind of philosophically hoped the team would move on from Cousins, even already, start fresh. Well, there's never been a better chance with Cousins because he's coming off a major injury. He can leave if he wants. He doesn't have a contract.

You're going to pay him a ton to keep him, and your team sort of in flux. So I thought, hey, let's lay out the options here, Randy, from maybe most attractive to least attractive, from a Viking standpoint. If right now, today, I can hear my phone's ringing now. I'm sure it's crazy. GM of the Vikings is calling the show and asking us,

hey guys, what should we do? What do you got? What are the best options here, Randy? I hear you. Put him on speaker because I'd love to chat with him about it. I think it's fair to couch your decision just that way. My guess is that Vikings will, and probably already have, set a threshold of what they're willing to pay to keep cousins.

This also comes with a list of other things, other options that they can do with the rest of their team if they do this with cousins. Things we can't do is overpay this amount from a cap standpoint because it's going to cost us other issues on our football team that we've got to get better. So compare these things to what they do if we had a quarterback that cost half as much. What could we do with the rest of our team if we feel like the step down from cousins to a, alternative and it doesn't have to be Sam Don't know, it might be somebody else, might be Minchu, like you mentioned. Is the step down that dramatic that we don't want to check the boxes of three or four other things as well, which might include finding an upgrade at middle linebacker. It may include paying Justin Jefferson who's screaming for more money.

It may make a difference with us keeping Daniel Hunter or not. I'm sure the Vikings are doing all this math currently. If they can find a quarterback middle of the road that can be a bridge running this system to them finding a more long-term view or a long-term better option? I think they'd do it, to be honest with you. I don't know how they solve it at the end of it, but I'm for solving and checking as many boxes as we can with that quarterback money if we're not falling off a cliff in production and skill dropping way down. So that's, again, it's all about options and what you perceive as the better options for you in the long run. And we saw last year going from basically a good Kirk Cousins to a third string type quarterback is really what they were playing with.

That falls off the cliff and makes it seem like we got to have cousins. But what you're saying is, no, no, no, no, there's a middle ground there to where, you know, we, especially, hey, we got, everyone said Kevin O'Connell is a good offensive coach, well, let's see it. Yeah. Let's see him coach a quarterback with talent, like you said, whether it's a Sam Darnold or somebody like that, with some upside. and get the most out of him and then be able to plan our team out rather than let's just go all in on cousins and then try to keep Justin Jefferson and then not be able to do as much else and be right back where we were where maybe Kirk's on fire playing the best ball of his career but we're going to be struggling to get our head above water and we're probably not even going to win a playoff game right that's sort of where they're at the same time Randy if you were Kevin O'Connell or even quasi for that matter they're not in year one either. So who wants to get worse at quarterback going into whatever year it is, year three?

Is it year three for those guys? Who wants to get worse at quarterback now? Well, nobody. And that's the key element to it, is how much worse are you? And that's subjective and that's in the eyes of the beholder. And let's just stay on the Sam Darnel. And I'm not making a case for him, but I'm just using him for an example. Nobody would, I don't think, argue that the Jets let Sam Darnold down.

right? I mean, that was a complete disaster going on there. They ship him to Carolina who gave two or three picks. Guess what Carolina was. Disaster. A total disaster as well. For offensive schemes, for answers for quarterbacks, it was a struggle. He ended up going to San Francisco close to home, makes a good fit with really a sound offense. And I think really progressed in a lot of ways more this year as a backup in San Francisco than he did the previous four years in these other places. So, There's ways to sort that out in your own mind that it may, for the fans, say, that's ludicrous. Why could you ever consider that? It really isn't ludicrous when you can rationalize why certain players produced or not along the way.

And really what has to happen for them to get over the hump. And if I'm in that meeting with the Vikings and given my presentation on that, they said, hey, Sando, make the case for moving in that direction. I say, all right, let's look at Baker Mayfield. look at you think he's been somebody who's been in a range of situations from bad to good right i don't think he's ever been in a great situation but just putting him you know and look you had reservation to baker mayfield we're not saying baker meelfield's great but we're just saying hey here's a player with some talent uh who can look really bad or can look pretty good maybe not as dependent on him as as it is of what's around him

and so if we can make a parallel to a Sam Darnold, which I'm not saying necessarily they're the same, but that's the type of player that, hey, maybe we can get a little bit more out of him than's been gotten out of him and our resources are better allocated. And we're going to be moving on from Kirk Cousins at some point anyway. He's not a sure bet long term anyway.

He's 36 coming off in Achilles. Yeah. Coming off of an Achilles and shoot, you could double down on him right now for a lot of money and then, you know, hey, the second year, there's, he does a knee or something because he wasn't all, you know, it wasn't 100% or whatever, right? I'm just, you know, that would be totally plausible, a part of the decision here. So that could help you decide, you know, what, let's, let's consider and move in the introduction right now. And guess what? Cousins holds the cards anyway.

He may, I don't think he necessarily wants to leave, but he'll have some opportunities out there. Well, the other thing is you make a move for a lesser or a different option besides Kurt Cousins, who you would have to commit, I'm assuming, two or three years, 40 million plus to get. And I like Kurt. And we all know that he's deserving of this, especially with his relationship with what Minnesota has. Minnesota picks 11th in the first round, too. So if you do at some point reckon that we can take a slight step back, save $20 million and maybe move from 11 to 8 or 9 or 7, grab a quarterback that we feel good about for the future,

then you've solved it even, I think, more for the long term than you could ever do if you commit $40 million to that spot for two or three years. So that was like in our athletic beat writer mock draft where I think Denver traded up into eight or nine and took J.J. McCarthy. I can't remember who it was who a couple months ago wrote a column saying, look, out McCarthy's going to be a draft higher than anyone's thinking. And it'd be fun to go back and read the comments on that story that we're probably saying, come on, Mueller. What are you talking about? But here we are, and that's going to happen probably. And so maybe instead of a

Denver team doing it, maybe a Minnesota could be that type of team, get up there, get somebody like that, although you think maybe even McCarthy be gone before that. Is that true? I would think he is going to be, to be honest with you. Again, he's not an easy evaluation for a lot of people to make. But the highs are so much higher, maybe than everybody, in my opinion, besides Caleb, that it's a matter of how much do you think you can get the lows to be eliminated. And the lows aren't bad at all. But the highs are really high. And so I think I commented to you after that writer's draft the other day the athletic had. If Denver trades up and gets J.J. McCarthy, sign me up for that. I want to see that. If I was a Bronco fan, I would be ecstatic over that.

So talk about these quarterbacks in their situations. Before we move on in the next topic, I think Kenny Pickett's related this too. And we have mentioned him before. But, you know, on the podcast, Randy, I've frequently heralded your many, you know, great evaluations here. Easy now. Easy. Yeah, but we, you know, we don't shy away when, you know, if there's one that's confounding. And I think Kenny Pickett has been because I think when he came out, he was maybe the only

quarterback you thought that draft should be a first round pick, no problem. taking them in the top 10. And we know Pittsburgh's been its own mess on offense. So that's a huge part of this. But I had to laugh this week because Terry Bradshaw came out and replied to the idea that they might move on from Pickett and acquire Justin Fields as an idea. And Jack Lambert came rushing up from his middle linebacker position on Twitter on X and was hilarious. I mean, he basically said, he said, Terry is smart and knows the game 100% percent. you so-called Steeler fans need to get your heads out of your asses. I mean, come, this is just classic.

This is exactly how you'd expect Jack Lambert with no teeth to be talking. Support and back your starting quarterback pick. And I'm like, hey, right there, I'm backing off. I don't want to be, I got no problem with you, Mr. Lambert. I don't care how old you are. You could kick my ass every day of the week. But he said, hey, on a serious note, he said, Bradshaw lived through some fan media hate too. You people should know better.

It's clear as day how good he can be. Is it really as clear as day, Mr. him here? Or what do you think? Are you sticking to your guns on picket? I just hate it when these quarterbacks become the definition of good or bad based on them all the time. And that's why I really dispute the stat of quarterback wins and losses because there are so many other things that go into it. It's crazy that these people just have a hard time accepting that these are organizational failures or successes, especially first round quarterbacks. They really are. Wouldn't we have seen more, though, or no? I think this. Teams are very critical of themselves. We talked about it with regard

to how critical they are of players. They're also very critical of their own schemes, sometimes coaches' decisions, sometimes other things internally. Again, we'll never hear it, though. So I think what's happening in Pittsburgh is they want and still believe in Kenny Pickett. I cannot fault him with everything that has gone wrong. I can surely say he's played a small part in it and some some games more of a part than others. But I've said, and you confirm this, we've thought that offensive scheme in Pittsburgh has been questionable and shoddy for the last two or three years. I don't know who could have survived this. So I have just not loved the lack of sophistication the last couple years, the

lack of answers that they've given their quarterbacks as far as processing from the pocket. I think Pickett and whoever's been there has been on their own. Not until the end of this year when Mason Rudolph played two or three games, did we see a quarterback with answers and could find those answers from the pocket? He did that. But guess what? The system had been tweaked enough where they had moved on from Matt Canada two months earlier. And they finally kind of came around at the end of this season.

I just think I still like Pickett. I think he's talented enough for them. And like I said, they want him to have the job. I think before they make a decision on Pickett, this new offense and whether you believe in Arthur Smith in his system or not, I do think it's an identity that's easily, easily definable, which will help Pickett. I think the things that they have been missing in the past are two things that they'll have this year. They will have a running game. They are built to have a running game. Their offensive line is built to have a running game. Their backs are built to run the ball in an

effective way. And I think the he is in Pickett in this case, will have more answers in his back pocket to play with when he's standing on the spot trying to process who to throw the ball to. So I think playing quarterback in the NFL is great if you're talented. You have no chance if you don't have answers because of the system. And I'm not blaming coaches. I'll be honest with you. Yeah, but we have talked to coaches about it. I've talked to other coaches about it who agree with me that certain schemes and systems work better. And in this case, I just think it's in defense of picket and you can blame Tomlin for not pulling the trigger earlier. He's also irresponsible.

Loyalty is a fault as well. I just think, and this is in hindsight, a different system is going to allow picket to either sink or swim, and we're going to find out next year. And before they pull the plug on him, Steeler brass, stealer decision makers are looking for that bit of information. I can't wait to see this because, you know, remember when Arthur Smith was with,

Tennessee, they picked up Ryan Tannehill, who was sort of on the, you know, and he had had more success, obviously. He had had some decent season in Miami. It was at least a mid-pack type of starter, top 20 for sure, in the league. But he had some years there where they really produced, you know, at a different level. And it was, you know, they had a great running back and some good skill weaponry, too. But what you're saying here is that, hey, come into the draft, you thought Pickick had a chance to be a top half of the league quarterback, and you still think that if we can get him, you know, something better than remedial help from his scheme, which we should be able to get now. I think they have players, Mike. They have perimeter players. They have people up front now. They've done a pretty good job of building and doing some things offensively that should have resulted in more production and more success. And we haven't seen that because I just think the system hasn't helped them along the way. Yep. We're rolling, Randy. I mean, we've got four or five more topics we could put on here, but let's make a couple choices here of what we want to hit before we wrap this thing up.

We're going to be heading to the combine here this weekend. Is there anything out of that you want to hit on before we wrap this up? This whole podcast was basically a GM notebook. We went through the whole thing. We don't have a separate one. We basically used it. But I got up, we got four or five things on here. We want to wrap it up with any one of them. Does anything come jump out to you? Yeah. There's a couple of them. things that I think we could term as GM notebook type rules. And we did talk about the added pressure that players have now in dealing with social media. And that seems like a topic that is nothing new. People understand that. But I have heard some things in the last week that I think are worth addressing, whether it be Michael Parsons' comments on the worldwide leader or some other podcast of just spewing out, in my opinion, bullshit, you know, just ratings. I think the GM doesn't like the star player.

out there to set the agenda for personnel? What can be gained from this? As a team, I'm always team first, and nothing can be gained from these comments that he's making. The same can be said for Antonio Pierce, who appeared on their podcast, the defensive lineman, the Rushers podcast. Max Crosby was it? Yeah, Max Crosby, just spewing out garbage about the Mahomes rules and this or that. And what's he talking about? Why would you put a target on yourselves? Because you beat the Chiefs one time on Christmas Day in Kansas City. Now you're, you're you think you're on par with them? I got news for you.

The Chiefs are not on par with the, the Raiders are not on par with the Chiefs. Trust me, I know I'm going way out on a limb by saying that because they beat him. But that is not the case. If I'm Antonio Pierce, I just got to throttle it back. And I know Tom Telesco well.

My guess is he is in his office cringing every time Antonio Pierce goes public with some of these crazy comments that could come back to haunt us down the road. I just wish he'd go spend time with his coaches and actually install offenses and defenses that are going to help us get better and coach the team. Well, that's an interesting thing because I do,

this reminds me a little bit of, you know, it's not the same, but a little bit of the same. So Dan Campbell has been, was criticized early on for, you're not really talking about opponents, but just the way he sort of spoke. But over time we saw, hey, he knew what he was doing, and so he's being authentic, he's being true to himself. Antonio Pierce, is he, where's that line, Randy?

Is this interim coach behavior from him talking like that? Is it Antonio Pierce? Hey, you know what? I'm going to be true to myself. I was a hard-hitting linebacker in my day and I'll fight anyone in Allie tomorrow. And that's going to be the MO of our team or no, he should now be, you're saying, he's got to throw out of that down. You're not a player anymore. You're not a interim coach. You're now sort of the CEO messenger, you know, head of the messaging for our franchise. Is that what you're saying? I'm saying, yeah, Antonio Pierce is acting like a linebacker for the Giants. That's what he's acting like. And going public with a lot of these comments, I think, in a way, hurt his leadership in his own locker room. Because there's a lot of smart guys in there, a lot of guys that do have team first that understand the direction we need to be headed. And yeah, his style is different. And I credit him for what he did last year of five or six games or whatever it was when he was the coach.

It's going to be different now. And I think you're going to see the mantra of say less, do more. come more into play because I'm sure this will be brought up by the powers that be there, things like this. Let's just take what he said about Mahomes in particular and spin it a little bit. He said, and we all know the Jordan rules, when Michael Jordan was playing against the pistons, the pistons had rules that said, we're going to knock Michael Jordan down no matter what.

He's not going to score a lay in. We're going to go out of our way to, I don't care if we hurt him. I don't care what happens, but we're going to treat him different. And really, that's what he's saying about Mahomes. We're going to treat him different. We're going to have to hit him, pinch him, move him. Do you think this league, in this day and age now, is not going to have every eye on the Raiders when they play the Chiefs next year, whenever that is?

It may cost his team. A 15-yard personal foul late hit carries a lot more weight than a personal foul in a basketball game when you're basing the Jordan rules comparing them to the Mahom rules. So the stakes are much higher. The accountability is much higher. And I just think it's crazy to even go down this road. Even if you thought this, you would never say it publicly. It's really on the line of bounty.

Ask Sean Payton how that went. And the Saints, when they decided to do things really, not publicly, but when they went after Favre and other players behind the scenes. Young fans go on to YouTube and search for Ben Davidson's hit on Len Dawson. Back in the day, a little raider hit on the quarterback there. where the play's totally over. He comes in, dives his head right into the back or side of Len Dawson was a big deal. I think Mahomes might also turn to hit, turn to the official and ask for a call.

Do you think that would happen in the game? Pretty sure. He ever seen that? I'm pretty sure he'd get it, too. He always does that. That's the crazy thing. I love watching Mahomes play, but that's one thing. Hey, all these quarterbacks do it.

Yeah. Oh, they all they got the referee is their caddy. The guy's basically, you know, basically all but hands him his towel between plays. You know, and get some ready to use like a first name basis. There's no doubt. Like Rogers, remember Rogers would be like,

hey, Carl or whatever, you know, hey, how's the kids? You know? First name basis, no doubt. I think you're barking up the wrong tree trying to rough up Mahomes in that way in any way outside the rules.

Although I understand the mentality, but I get what you're saying. We'll watch and see where it goes. We'll see if this is a one-off in the off season or if it's going to be like this all the time. And I'll take the Chiefs and the points against the Raiders next season in the first game.

What do you think about that? Yeah, I'm counting me in on taking my homes and Andy Reid, all right, no matter what gets said between now and then, too. Sounds good. All right. Hey, we are going to head to the Combine. The Football GM podcast is going to take a couple weeks off next Friday and or next Saturday, I guess, and the Saturday after that.

We will not have a show. We're going to just be cramming for our show after that, just totally preparing. We're going to take a little bit of a break and a deep breath and just two weeks, two weeks. Just two weeks. And then we'll talk to everybody. We'll be ready to dive into free agency. Everyone's got the rankings now they can look at and we're ready to go.

So I'll see an indie. We've got a steak dinner. Sounds good. Count me in on that. I'm looking forward to to going to Indy. Believe it or not, I do want to go. Yeah, you've been how many times? Oh, I've probably been 30 times.

Oh, at least. At least. At least. Yeah, that doesn't count games. So I like Indy. It's a good town and it's a good place to have the combine. It is. It is the central hub this time of year, especially for all NFL parts to be moving.

And it's a fun time. I love it, even though some teams are not. sending as many people. I just love seeing all the people from the league there. It's just a great, great opportunity. So if there's any people from the league there that are listening today, we'll see you there and we'll see everybody else in a couple weeks. This was the Athletic Football Show's Football GM podcast.